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HISTORY OF
THE INDUSTRY GADFLY AND GUIDE
With Revealing
Personal Testimony Appended
THE HISTORY of The
Comics Journal and its various publishing enterprises is retailed in a
doorstop of a recent book: We Told You So: Comics As Art—An Oral History
of Fantagraphics Books by Tom Spurgeon and Michael Dean (696 8x10-inch
pages, b/w and color; 2016 Fantagraphics Books hardcover, $49.99). The book is
perhaps best described as being almost 2 inches thick and weighing five pounds.
And these dimensions are achieved on ordinary matt-finish paper, not glossy,
weighty stuff. In other words, the paper on which this tome is printed is thin,
not fat, which makes the weight of the book even more descriptive. Otherwise,
the title and cascading subtitles pretty thoroughly tell us what is here.
It’s
one hell of a lot of interviews—mostly with publisher Gary Groth and his
late partner Kim Thompson but also including Eric Reynolds over
the last few years and Mike Catron from the early years when he was
Groth’s partner, co-publisher and co-founder of the magazine of comics news and
criticism that sought to set the world free of garbage funnybooks about
anatomically superior beings in colorful tights.
Even
though those are the chief witnesses whose testimony was taken, whatever they
say is augmented by scores of others, those who wandered into staff jobs at
Fantagraphics (sometimes very briefly) or who made contributions to the
magazine. I’ve been a regular (in nearly ever issue) contributor for almost
forty years, but I appear in only two short quotes in the book. I don’t know
where they got the quotes. They sound like something I said, but I can’t
remember when or where I might have said these things in a form that enabled
Spurgeon to find them.
Page
after page of mostly short excerpts from long interviews are profusely
illustrated with photographs of Groth and others of the Fanta crew in revealing
(albeit non-erotic) circumstances, drawings, caricatures, comic strips about
Fantagraphics and/or comics criticism, cartoons, magazine covers, copies of
pages from the Journal and other Fanta publications and other visual
ephemera—including the cover of Groth’s first fanzine, Fantastic Fanzine,
produced in 1968 when he was only 14. Visually, the book is a monster
scrapbook, expertly edited and ingeniously designed not thrown together in the
usual manner of scrapbooks.
Anecdotally,
the interviews are divided into chapters that rehearse the history of the
company in chronological order with testimony from (or stories about) most of
the notables in the profession as well as those published, eventually, by
Fantagraphics—Art Spiegelman, Gil Kane, Joe Sacco, Dan Clowes, the Bros
Hernandez, Jack Kirby, Harvey Kurtzman, Peter Bagge, Robert Crumb and the
undergrounds, Roberta Gregory, Denis Kitchen, Kim Deitch, Bill Griffith, Bob
Fingerman, Carol Tyler, Chris Ware, Stan Sakai, Jim Woodring, Dame Darcy, Ralph
Steadman, Roger Landridge and more, many many more.
In
addition to the Journal, Fantagraphics began fairly early publishing
occasional collections of comics or comics-related publications that
demonstrated the sort of “art” Groth and Catron and Thompson wanted to find in
comics. Said Thompson: “We always saw the undergrounds as the direct precursors
to what we were doing, so all those collections we did were a natural next
step.”
The
histories of a few such early productions are rehearsed herein, and we
eventually get to Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez and Love and Rockets, which
exemplified “comics as art” as far as the Fanta crew were concerned. Along the
way, we get glimpses into Amazing Heroes (the mainstream fan
periodical), Nemo (histories of comic strips mostly), and Prime Cuts (“Raw
done right,” Groth pronounced).
The
history includes descriptions of the various “offices” the magazine has
occupied. After an inaugural year or so being produced in Groth’s apartment
near the University of Maryland (where he was once a journalism major), he
started renting houses, parts of which would be converted to editorial working
spaces, the remainder to living quarters for Groth, Thompson and a couple of
others.
The
first of these establishments was in Stamford, Connecticut, starting in about
1978. (Dates are in short supply in the book: instead of a date, a new event or
adventure is introduced with a narrative “and then....”) A half-dozen years
later, they moved to Los Angeles— as Groth explained, in order to be close to
the movie business where they could expect to make deals for publications;
never worked out that way. By the time of the move, the company had accumulated
enough inventory of publications and production equipment that it took 4
28-foot Ryder trucks to make the trek. Fanta staffers drove the trucks. Five
years later (in about 1989), when they moved to Seattle, they again required 4
trucks, but this time, they hired professional drivers. In Seattle, they set up
in the house they’re still in on Lake City Way near the University District
and, much later, opened a bookstore to sell Fanta books and other
comics-related stuff.
In
Los Angeles, Groth changed their modus operandi: the company worked out of one
house, and its top echelon staff lived in another. He bought the houses, and
when they left for Seattle, it was the height of a housing boom: he sold them
for enough to buy two houses in their new location, one for work and the other,
a duplex, for living in.
From
the beginning in Groth’s Maryland apartment, the office hours were nonexistent:
people worked all the time, day and night, until they fell asleep; when they woke
up, they returned to the work. Sometimes, maybe once a month or so, they had a
party. But it sounds to me like life at Fantagraphics was pretty much just a
relentless grind.
And
there was, for the longest time, no money except for essentials—buying food,
paying the rent and the printer. Groth, Catron and Thompson drew no salaries
from their company. For several of the early years, they all had day jobs.
Groth worked as an office temp; he could type 100 words/minute.
Some
of the detail recalled in the interviews is too insignificant to matter much,
and some of it is missing altogether. I looked last night in vain for something
that might shed insightful light on Groth’s celebrated attack on Alan Light and The Buyer’s Guide for Comic Fandom. I saw nothing. Something might be
there, but I didn’t see it. I guess Groth was just pissed that Light ran TBG in the way he did, which was, not to mince words, dispicable.
In
the first (No.27, August 1976) Fantagraphics issue of The Nostalgia Journal,
The Comics Journal’s ancestral predecessor, Groth exposed Light’s
ruthlessness and chicanery. Among other things, Light would accept no
advertising from any other enterprise in fandom that threatened to be a
competitor of TBG. And since TBG was fandom’s biggest, most frequently
appearing publication, Light’s policy effectively limited all growth in fandom
to his publication. And he also tried to sabotage outright any perceived
competitor. Groth’s editorial was a long scathing indictment of Light and his
unscrupulous practices.
No
one in fandom had ever committed anything like Groth’s attack. It was akin to
“investigative journalism” in its most cutthroat mode. It went on for several
pages. And in my vague grasp of such things, I think it established The
Comics Journal, which name The Nostalgia Journal assumed five issues
later with No.32.
Later
in the book, Groth quotes a blistering valedictorial for Light that he wrote at
the time Krause acquired TBG in about 1983. “Light’s major achievement,
aside from making himself rich, was that of being comics fandom’s first real
business predator. His business practices may have been execrable, but his
commitment to journalistic standards and critical thought was equally
appalling, running the gamut from indifference to downright swinishness. His
career of hustling is a monument to selfish opportunism and spiritual squalor,
the kind of overnight American success story revered by the envious and deified
by moneyed barbarians.”
Light
sued; but eventually dropped the suit when it became apparent that Groth had a
file on Light that would support and justify everything he said as legitimate
opinion well within the realm of free speech.
(I
was about to be sued once for something I’d written: Maurice Horn threatened
over a review of his 100 Years of American Newspaper Comics that I did
for Inks, the scholarly comics studies journal published by the Cartoon
Library at Ohio State University. I called his book a fraud, full of error and
misguided opinion. Horn threatened to sue, but when the OSU lawyers were told
about it, they laughed. Whatever I said was expression of opinion supported by
sufficient examples to make it fair game. The same was true of Groth and his
attack on Light. Both Horn and Light backed off. Incidentally, Inks is
being revived and my review of Horn’s book will be reprinted in the
reincarnation.)
Another
early episode in the Journal’s history was the lawsuit filed by Michael
Fleisher, a writer for DC, against Groth, the Journal, and sf author Harlan Ellison, charging them with libel, slander and defamation of
character. During an interview in No.53 conducted by Groth, Ellison had said
Fleisher was “crazy,” “bugfuck” and “certifiable”—which, Ellison admitted in
the next breath, was “a libelous thing to say, and I say it with some humor.”
He
also clearly intended, from the context of the conversation, to compliment
Fleisher. who wrote some pretty weird stories (in one of which, the protagonist
of a comic book series, Jonah Hex, was killed and stuffed and mounted).
The
tale of the Fleisher suit takes a modestly lengthy section of the book in
various interview segments, which is then followed by another long section in
straight reportage. The trial (in November 1986) took four weeks. After 1½
hours of deliberation, the jury declared that Fleisher had not established his
claims against the defendants, and the case was closed.
The
episode cost a lot, and Groth had to raise money to pay the bills—which he did.
Other
adventures discussed include the outrageous miscarriage of justice in the case
of Mike Diana, whose freedom of expression was curtailed in a draconian ruling
that forbade him from drawing. And the Dennis Kitchen obsession.
When
Kitchen Sink was faltering, Dennis brought it back to life briefly by merging
with Tundra. Kitchen described the merger as if Kitchen Sink bought Tundra, but
it was more likely the other way around: Tundra was rolling in money; Kitchen
Sink was not. Groth was determined to get to the truth of the matter, but he
was frustrated by members of his own staff who, it is alleged, were conspiring
with Kitchen to suppress the truth and maintain the fiction.
This
sort of behind-the-scenes stuff occurs frequently in We Told You So.
The
book’s only flaw—and it is considerable—is that it falls shy of meeting the
expectations prompted by the title. What Groth and the Journal ostensibly told us is that comics were art and ought to be held to the kinds
of standards all art ostensibly strives to meet. But what those standards are
is mostly missing from this tome. What is a good comic book that meets
aesthetic standards? I have an answer (which I’ve been flogging in This Corner
and elsewhere for forty years), but the Journal’s answer is not readily
apparent in this book.
Instead,
what we have is gossip about people. Most of the interviews (judging from what
appears herein) descend, pretty quickly, into discussions of the personalities
and quirks of the people who passed through the Fantagraphics doors as staff
members, editors in particular.
The
names of editors (i.e., managing editors mostly; Groth is the editor) are
sprinkled throughout the volume, and I must confess that many of them I never
heard of or can’t remember. I suppose I was dealing most with Gary when
submitting my columns. At least, early on. But eventually, he passed me along
to the next echelon. I remember Tom Spurgeon, for example; that may be because
he held the job longer than anyone else. (Five years, I think it was.)
I
also remember Carol Sobocinksi, who was the chief villain in the Kitchen
conspiracy. I had met here at the Chicago Comic Con before she was the Journal editor. Or maybe it was after. Probably after because I remember her
encapsulation of her experiences at Fantagraphics being that Groth and his
minions seemed interested only in going off into the hills to practice shooting
guns at targets.
There
are photographs in the book of one of these forays into the joys of firearms,
but it is hardly represented as a major preoccupation.
Whatever
its flaws—minor at most—the book is informative and fun to read. It’s full of
historical information about the life and hard times of the Journal with
insight into the personalities of the crusaders who have made The Comics
Journal the flagship of intelligent commentary on the art of the comics.
Although the book doesn’t tell us what Fantagraphics standards are, the
company’s products stand as exemplars of those standards.
The
physical dimensions of the book I take to be symbolic: bulking large, it is a
monument to the singular dedication of its founders and perpetrators. They gave
their lives over to a cause they passionately believed in. And they kept after
it, week after week, month after month, year after year. They kept at it
through bad times and good. They were relentless. And dedicated.
I
keep returning to parts I’ve only skimmed, and I find new nuggets of
information to savor.
Fantagraphics
is known for publishing some works that the editors knew wouldn’t be
commercially successful. What other publisher regularly does anything like it?
Yes, they also launched Eros, the pornographic keyhole of Fantagraphics. But
the sleazy comics about sex supported the idealism of the rest of the
enterprise—the crusading and standard-setting.
The
monument also commemorates the Fanta success. Through sheer doggedness, Groth
and company managed to do what they set out to do—to inspire works that
exemplified excellence in comics, to needle an industry into doing better by
its artform. The book offers ample insight into the process while celebrating the
achievement.
Loaded
with illustrative matter, the book is a sideshow as well as a main event. The
pictures testify to the variety of the medium and the energy of the company’s
endeavors. The big visual moments of the book slip by, almost evading notice—
several photos of Groth wearing something other than a t-shirt; in one, he’s in
a white dinner jacket with a black bow tie. Another shows him in bondage,
modeling for someone’s artistic endeavor. Now that’s history.
GROTH KNEW HE
WANTED TO BECOME A PUBLISHER from the age of 12. And it didn’t matter, much,
what he would publish. He and Catron discovered a mutual interest in, first,
journalism, then comics. “We both wanted to engage in criticism and journalism
and publishing,” said Groth.
Groth
was, after several false starts, a journalism major in college; then he dropped
out. Catron was also a journalism major. Their first collaboration was in
publishing a magazine, Sounds Fine, about rock music collecting. Next,
they got into comics journalism by acquiring The Nostalgia Journal,
which they quickly converted to a comics news and reviews publication—i.e., The
Comics Journal. Catron was involved in the journalism part of the magazine;
Groth, in the criticism part.
Said
Groth: “What I wanted to do with the magazine was to provoke. I had an attitude
and a point of view. ... I wanted people to pay attention. I wanted to cause
trouble because I thought that’s what was needed at that moment in time.”
During
his brief “detour” to college and the workaday world, Groth hadn’t been
reading comics. When he got back into reading them— “I was horrified at my new
perception. It was a bunch of crap. That’s why the tone of the magazine for the
first few years was so incendiary. I couldn’t believe what crap it was. ... I
thought comics should be held to the same standards as other art forms. We were
trying to elevate the accepted standards of the time. I was trying to push
people’s faces into the idea that this stuff is just lousy and should be
better. ... We shouldn’t tolerate less.”
But
what are those standards? And who, besides the Bros Hernandez, has met them?
After reading through the book, I can’t tell you what those standards are
except by inference from the works Fantagraphics has published.
My
Dubious Adventures with the Journal
Since my role,
however slight, in writing for the Journal for 36 years isn’t
acknowledged in We Told You So, I’ve decided to make up for the
deficiency here and, like everyone interviewed in the book, rehearse some of my
history with it while I have your attention.
Because We Told You So is laced, fore and aft, with photographs of its sundry
actors, I’ll do the same here.
Popular
mythology to the contrary notwithstanding, I wasn’t there at the beginning.
That was Adam. And then came Eve. That was, admittedly, a long time ago. But
shortly thereafter, I was at The Comics Journal, doing a column called
“The Reticulated Rainbow.” That was in issue No. 54, March 1980. Just 27 issues
and only four years into the 300-issue 40-year Fantagraphics run of the
magazine.
I
started reading it with the earliest issues when it was The Nostalgia Journal, No.27 to be exact—the first issue under Groth’s editor/ownership. And while I
enjoyed the magazine, I thought the prevailing note of scorn for comics in the
early years was a bit too much. I finally came aboard with the notion that I’d
write a column that found something good to say about comics.
With
the fifth Fantagraphics issue (January 1977), the periodical acquired its
present name, The Comics Journal, relinquishing the old name because the
new management’s vision was more focused on comics and less on peripheral
interests like sf and old movies. And by the end of the year, the Journal assumed magazine format with a slick paper cover.
The Journal continued reporting the facts in the comics industry, and Gary
continued calling ’em as he saw ’em. And then with No. 39 in April 1978, a new
writer joined in the chorus. Marilyn Bethke began a series of “reviews”
of other fan publications. She, too, called ’em as she saw ’em.
Her
first target was Jim Steranko’s Mediascene, which she dubbed
“Mediocrescene,” accusing Steranko of “linguistic redundancies, cliches,
misunderstood metaphors, and bad grammar.” In No. 40, Bethke had the old RBCC
(Rocket’s Blast Comicollector) in her sights. Jim Van Hise’s stewardship of RBCC, “the oldest fanzine in comics history” founded in
Florida in late 1961 by Gordon Love, was a smorgasbord of comics and sf
and ads in every issue, and in recognition of the grab-bag content, Bethke
reviewed each of the magazine’s features and departments individually.
At
the time, I was producing a column there with the title Comicopia. Like
the cornucopia that inspired the name, it was intended to
overflow with all things comics.  Bethke found the column “barely interesting,” its logic
self-contradictory, its comparisons invalid, forced or contrived, its style
colorless, its conclusions ludicrous, its opinions disguised as analysis, and
its middle-aged author preoccupied with out-dated ideas about women and sex.
Since
that time, of course, I have changed. I’m no longer middle-aged. I am now
simply aged.
Bethke
went on to review other fanzines in the next several issues of the Journal and then disappeared forever. (She’s not in We Told You So.) Presumably,
she had grown out of her interest in comics or in visiting upon unsuspecting
readers her opinions disguised as analysis while committing more
self-contradictory, contrived, colorless, and ludicrous vituperative contumely
of the sort that distinguished her short but incendiary run in the magazine.
I,
however, grew older but never out. And I continued to pursue a lifelong
interest in comics. Shortly after the Bethke barrage, I wrote the Journal a letter (about superhero groups like JSA and JLA and the Legion), and Gary
invited me to contribute to the magazine.
I
thanked him for his interest and the invitation, but declined. I have a
sometimes self-sabotaging sense of loyalty, and at that time, I thought if I
started writing for the Journal, it’d be a sort of betrayal of RBCC.
Gary persisted, though, and asked me again several months later. This time, I
accepted the invitation—with a proviso. I wanted every column I did for the Journal to conclude with a footnote saying the reader could find more displays of
my obsessions at RBCC. I think Gary agreed to that, but it never
happened: about then, Van Hise moved from Florida to California, and the
magazine stopped appearing regularly. Before too long, it was defunct. And I
was ensconced at the Journal.
I AM REHEARSING
THIS TEDIOUS HISTORY in my usual colorless but deathless prose because it
provides a little context for the rest of this foray into Little Known
Facts—namely, that the Journal does not demand of its contributors
adherence to any sort of Party Line. At least, I’ve never heard such a demand.
In
fact, Bethke, in her critique of the Journal (which she found
self-contradictory in that its virtues were its hubris) (try making sense of
that), complained that the magazine “has no real editorial personality.” There
was, she implied, no Party Line: “The readers simply don’t know where the
editors stand on the issues presented. The Comics Journal has been
accused of muck-raking, yellow journalism, and even lying, but I have never
read an adequate explanation of the editors’ motives, ethics, ideals and
objectives for their magazine.”
If
the Journal had a Party Line, probably I wouldn’t be there—because if it
had a Party Line, Bethke’s view would have been the Journal’s, and if
the Journal harbored her opinion of my harmless drudgery, Gary,
presumably, would not have invited this middle-aged man with outdated opinions
to write for the magazine. Or so it would seem.
On
the other hand, I’ve always suspected that Gary invited me aboard because he
was looking for a way to inject a B-movie sensibility into the enterprise, the
sort of critical attitude that can appreciate mainstream funnybooks.
Fortunately for him, he came to the right place: as an unapologetic Randolph
Scott fan, I’m just the B-movie mentality that can find something in the latest
X-travaganza to cheer about. As tiresome as these repetitive formulaic comic
book plots are, we can at least usually enjoy the pictures, which, as a
cartoonist myself, I perused comics to enjoy. Still do.
Despite
the celebrated elitist belligerence of the magazine, I’ve never been directed
or even asked to attack anyone. I’ve never been directed to do anything except
what I wanted to do, and after proposing a topic and getting it cleared by
whatever Editorial Powers are currently enthroned, I’ve never had a column
spiked. (Well, that’s not quite true: one was once. But that was such an
exception that it proveth the rule. In any event, I’ve never been told to
adjust my attitude.)
But
maybe my testimony isn’t really needed. The evidence for the absence of a Party
Line is readily apparent in such issues of the Journal as No. 232 in
which Gary savages Scott McCloud’s digital vision on pages 32-40 while
publishing Charles Hatfield’s respectful (not to say idolatrous)
interview with McCloud on pages 64-79, giving twice the space to a view Gary
doesn’t hold himself.
The Journal has a reputation for elitist muck-raking and multi-syllabic
name-calling, but that’s not because everyone is shouting in unison. It’s just
because the Journal pursues the news in the industry aggressively and
encourages the expression of opinion. Constitutionally, the Journal seems to me to be more a forum than a force although as a forum, it has become
a force, an influence for excellence and maturity in the art form.
AND WHILE I
STILL HAVE YOUR ATTENTION, I’d like to say a word about Gary’s allegedly
horrendous editorial assault in 1991 upon the recently (then) deceased Carol
Kalish, who, as Vice President of New Product Development for Marvel
Comics, touted comics to comic book specialty stores in the formative years of
that branch of the industry.
The
word is “hogwash.”
Some
of the most inflammatory of Groth’s comments about Kalish are quoted in We
Told You So when he reviews the episode. But his essay over-all as it was
initially published is decidedly not an attack on Kalish. It is, rather, an
attack upon The Comics Buyer’s Guide (formerly Alan Light’s TBG),
which had, in the two months since Kalish’s death “at the tragically young age
of 36" (Gary’s words), devoted pages and pages of its letters column to
lugubrious expressions of grief by countless fans and an occasional pro who had
known the woman and who would now miss her.
I
remember thinking at the time that this much attention lavished upon a member
of the Marvel sales force seemed wildly out of proportion. Gary’s view—that
Kalish did her job “brilliantly” (“her mind was, quite simply, better, her
instincts quicker, than anyone else’s in an analogous position within the
comics industry”) while at the same time acknowledging that her job “was to
sell as much semi-literate junk to a gullible public as humanly
possible”—seemed clear-eyed and accurate rather than bathetic and sentimental,
as much of the testifying had been to that point.
If
anything, his jeremiad was a tribute to Kalish’s talent, personality, and,
even, honesty in a society that often advances the careers of untalented
dissembling nerds.
After
reading what Gary wrote, I had a much clearer appreciation of Kalish’s
contribution to the comics industry than I had derived from all of the grieving
letters in CBG. And it was, as I said, the excess at CBG that
Gary was attacking, not Kalish.
Gary
was, as usual, a little intemperate in his choice of words. I’m not sure, for
example, that I would have called Kalish a “shill” for Marvel Comics, but I
admired the pungent impact of the term. Moreover, Gary was trying to make a
point, and sometimes, as the farmer discovered in attempting to persuade a
stubborn mule, it’s necessary to attract their attention first, so you hit them
over the head with a two-by-four.
And
if we are to judge from subsequent performance, CBG probably agreed that
its coverage of Kalish’s death had been exorbitant: never again would it expend
as much space on the death of an individual—not even on Jack Kirby when he
died. In contrast, the Journal devoted almost an entire issue to
memorializing Kirby; but Kirby, like Carl Barks, was a creator of comics not a
peddler of them.
In
extolling the work of Kirby and Barks and Kurtzman and other giants of
accomplishment in the medium, the Journal undoubtedly advanced standards
of excellence. That’s what it set out to do, and it did it.
The
company’s history is remarkable. Sometimes more than remarkable—heroic. It
pulled itself up by its own boostraps—as American as apple pie and Davy
Crockett. And its signal achievements are exemplary. The fact that it survived
and sustained its vision the whole time is nothing short of stupendous.
P.S. In case
you have forgotten, Fantagraphics published my magnum opus, Meanwhile: The
Life and Art of Milton Caniff, Creator of Terry and the Pirates and Steve
Canyon. It’s offered for sale hereabouts, but this article is not evidence
of collusion. Just admiration.
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